House Majority Leader Erin Murphy said the budget plan would "build on our historic investments in education.

In her push to legalize medical marijuana in Minnesota, Rep. Carly Melin expected there would be tough negotiations and, inevitably, some compromise on the fine points of the proposal.

One month ago, the story of who would run against DFL Rep. Ron Erhardt on the Republican side of the ticket looked like it would be a familiar one, in which the runner-up from the last cycle takes a second crack at it and the field is cleared for her. But the House District 49A GOP endorsement contest isn’t playing out that way.

With big piles of money and high stakes, candidates for governor, Congress and the U.S. Senate have so far absorbed most of the attention when it comes to fundraising. But they aren’t the only politicos who turned in fundraising disclosures in January after clamoring for donations in 2013.

Kline raised $450,000 during the last quarter of 2013, and entered this year with $1.6 million in cash on hand.

In 2014 as in 2010, it appears that conservative reaction to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act is helping to drive GOP challengers into politics and to shape the main themes of their campaigns.

Dayton said the existing "operational problems" worry him, and are the kind of hitches that should have been worked out some time ago.